A team with a winning mentality SBRHS football team has high expectations coming into season

SOMERSET — The seniors on this year's Somerset Berkley Regional High School football team are used to winning. The freshmen team they played on was undefeated. Most of last year's starting lineup was made up of juniors and that team went on to win the Eastern Athletic Conference championship. But the Blue Raiders were k...

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By GEORGE AUSTIN

southcoasttoday.com

By GEORGE AUSTIN

Posted Sep. 5, 2014 at 12:01 AM

By GEORGE AUSTIN
Posted Sep. 5, 2014 at 12:01 AM

» Social News

SOMERSET — The seniors on this year's Somerset Berkley Regional High School football team are used to winning. The freshmen team they played on was undefeated. Most of last year's starting lineup was made up of juniors and that team went on to win the Eastern Athletic Conference championship. But the Blue Raiders were knocked out of the new playoff format system by Dighton Rehoboth in the first round. So the Blue Raiders can still do better.

"I just want to make sure they don't have a complacency attitude, because they won as juniors," SBRHS head coach Nick Freitas said. "That's one of my concerns. We want to keep progressing. We want to ratchet up the intensity. We can't be satisfied with things of the past."

Somerset Berkley begins its season on Friday night, Sept. 5, with a home game against Lincoln-Sudbury. It will be the first game under the lights at Hanson Memorial Field for the Blue Raiders in a couple of years because of the construction that was going on with the new high school.

The Blue Raiders finished 6-5 last year, winning the EAC with a 4-0 record.

Somerset Berkley played some scrimmages against Apponequet and Durfee on Saturday. Freitas said the veteran experience has helped the team early on.

"I've been happy with the performance and the attitude of the kids," Freitas said of how the players have looked in the preseason. "There are definitely some things we need to work on to get better, a lot of technical stuff, but overall, I'm satisfied, more than satisfied."

Senior quarterback Joe Fingliss will be returning to take the snaps for the Blue Raiders this season. Fingliss completed 22 of his 48 passes last year. He had three touchdown throws and two interceptions.

The running backs who will be lining up behind him include the tandem of seniors Marc Tonucci and Chip Wood, who gained a lot of yards last year, senior Jake Bert, junior Kyle Crombie, junior Bobby McNeil and junior Blair Gomes.

Wood reached that milestone of getting at least 1,000 yards rushing in a season that high school running backs shoot for every year with 1,074 yards on 177 carries, with 18 touchdowns and eight conversions. He averaged 6.1 yards per carry. Tonucci was just shy of that goal with 943 yards on 179 carries with seven touchdowns and six conversions. He averaged 5.3 yards per carry.

Helping to protect Fingliss during the passing game and opening up holes for the running backs will be offensive linemen Quinn Fallon, who is a senior, Zach Gordon, who is a senior, Chandler Furtado, who is a senior, Drew Gagnon, who is a senior, Logan Smith, who is a senior, Dylan Travassos, who is a senior, Jacob Cabana, who is a senior, brothers Cody, who is a senior, and Noah Julius, who is a sophomore, and Jeff Griffin who is a senior.

A lot of those players will turn around and play on the defensive line. The defensive line will include Gagnon, Smith, Fallon, Fingliss, Griffin and Travassos. The linebackers will be Bert, Furtado, the Julius brothers, senior Joel Salamon, senior Zach Hallet, junior, Sean Rockcliffe, Wood and Crombie. The defensive backs will be Tonucci, senior Mitchell Garrant, senior Chris Padula, junior C.J. Mulrooney, junior Austin Prudente and sophomore Nate Holt.

On special teams, Fallon, Cabana and Salamon will be doing the kicking and punting. The long snappers are junior Liam Mulvey, Garrant and sophomore J.J. Nunes. Kick and punt returners will be Crombie, Tonucci, Wood and Holt. Senior Sal Battaglia will also play on special teams.

As is the case with every football team, every season, injuries can play a part in how the season goes, so Freitas is hoping that all of those players will be able to stay on the field during the season. With the old high school building closed during the summer and the new fitness center not open yet, the players did weight training at Somerset Family Fitness Center.

"Health is always a big concern and making sure that we have the hunger to never be satisfied and just making sure that we have proper execution," Freitas said.

In the Eastern Athletic Conference this year, Freitas said Bishop Stang will bring back a good line, Coyle has senior talent and Bishop Feehan, the school that the Blue Raiders have always had to go through to win the title, "tends to reload" every year. The Blue Raiders will also be taking a boat ride to Martha's Vineyard for a game there. Freitas is taking a similar approach to last year, putting a couple of tough games for the Blue Raiders at the beginning of the schedule, with Lincoln-Sudbury and Archbishop Williams. Last year, Somerset Berkley lost those games, but it achieved the purpose that Freitas was looking for which was to get prepared for the EAC schedule. With those teams coming to Somerset to play this year and the Blue Raiders having seen what the competition was like against them last year, the coach is hoping that those games not only get his players ready for conference play, but he would like to see some wins against them this year. After playing those two games, the Blue Raiders will go up against the almost always tough Dighton-Rehoboth team on the road before beginning its EAC schedule.

The captains of this year's team are Bert, Wood and Smith. Bert said the players are excited about the season and said besides the seniors, the Blue Raiders also have a talented group of juniors and sophomores who will be playing with them on the field. He said the team winning the EAC title was a good experience for the players last year, especially since the Blue Raiders were able to grind out some games to beat Bishop Feehan and Bishop Stang last year that showed them what it takes to win games.

"Having that winning mentality definitely helps us going into the season," Bert said.

The players and coaches on the team went to see the movie "When the Game Stands Tall" on Monday, which is based on a true story about a California high school football team and how the team deals with losing a 151 game winning streak as its coach has health problems and a teammate is murdered. Bert said the movie showed a coach who wanted a perfect effort from his players, which meant he wanted them to give a maximum effort on every play from kickoff until the final ticks went off the clock in the fourth quarter.

"I thought it was a good movie," Bert said. "It really showed how winning isn't everything. It's about character and core values."

Even with all of the success and the games they have won in the past, Freitas knows his players can't rest on their laurels if they want to go further into the playoffs and get to the Super Bowl. He has been there before as a coach and says the players will have to put in the maximum effort and have high energy to achieve that accomplishment.

"I think that's every kid's dream," Freitas said of playing in the Super Bowl at the end of the year. "That's certainly my coach's dream, to get back there. But we can't just talk about it. They have to have the desire to be the best. We talk a lot about not just going through the motions."

The last time the Blue Raiders went to the Super Bowl was in 2011 when they lost to Beverly at Gillette Stadium. The Blue Raiders have never won a Super Bowl in their history.

The players on this year's team have high expectations. Bert said he thinks the team has the talent to go all the way.

"I want to win the Super Bowl this year," Bert said. "That's what we've been talking about since freshman year and anything less would be a disappointment."